"and how you must miss your ornaments. If I have chanced to give you
things as unwieldy as they are handsome, I ought to see that you have
them around you without trouble or expense, and I will!"

So for sixteen years, save for a brief respite when the family was in
the Philippines, their existence was blighted by these hated objects.
Once when they had given an especially beautiful party for the Admiral,
Captain Carey had carried the whole lot to the attic, but Cousin Ann
arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon, and Nancy, with the
aid of Gilbert and Joanna, had brought them down the back way and put
them in the dining room.

"You've taken the ornaments out of the parlor, I see," Cousin Ann said
at the dinner table. "It's rather nice for a change, and after all,
perhaps you spend as much time in this room as in any, and entertain as
much company here!"

Cousin Ann always had been, always would be, a frequent visitor, for she
was devoted to the family in her own peculiar way; what therefore could
Nancy be proposing to do with the Carey Curse?

"Listen, my good girl," Nancy now said to Kathleen, after she had closed
the door. "Thou dost know that the china-packer comes early to-morrow
morn, and that e'en now the barrels and boxes and excelsior are
bestrewing the dining room?"

"Yes."

"Then you and I, who have been brought up under the shadow of those
funeral urns, and have seen that tidy mother scrubbing the ears of that